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coondoggie writes "Cisco this week unveiled software designed to let companies track customers and prospects on social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other public forums and sites. Cisco SocialMiner allows users to monitor status updates, forum posts and blogs of customers so they can be alerted of conversations related to their brand. The software is designed to not only enable enterprises to monitor the conversations of their customers but to engage those that require service, Cisco says."

Awesome. So tell me, what happens when companies start to use this to toss around defamation lawsuits (RIAA style) to squash negative opinions of their product(s)?Won't someone think of the Apple-haters?!

Well one would hope that if large numbers of companies started doing this the people would realize there's a problem with the way things are working and demand the laws be changed so that those lawsuits would be useless.

Except that in some instances, the areas where these posts are being made are in what the posters deem to be a closed room, and I'm sure you'd be mad as hell if your comments in private are purposely eavesdropped.

Obviously there is a lack of control over this by most users, and maybe their understanding of the tech they're using is limited, but by posting something on a wall in facebook and thinking that only their friends can see it because those are their privacy settings does make it private to them.

Except that in some instances, the areas where these posts are being made are in what the posters deem to be a closed room, and I'm sure you'd be mad as hell if your comments in private are purposely eavesdropped.

What if your friend who has looser privacy settings decides to re-post what you wrote?

i agree, the word stalking is greatly overused on social networks and in general these days. is to "follow" someone on twitter actually any different than subscribing to a person's youtube account? no, it just uses a creepier word.

By posting to these kinds of social sites these people have indicated that they want to be heard. I wouldn't call it stalking if you are doing exactly what the "target" is asking you to do.

Asking to be heard is not the same thing as asking to be rigorously recorded, classified, categorized, and persistently contacted. You might be posting to Slashdot, a public Web site, but that doesn't mean you want every reader of your post to visit your home and knock on your door so they can hear you some more. Or at least, the assumption should be that you don't want that until and unless you say otherwise. So there are degrees to this, which also means there are reasonable levels and then there are extremes.

As an analogy, think of free speech. It has certain limitations. Within reason, you can say whatever you want in the USA because of the First Amendment. However, you may not just shout "FIRE!" in a theater when there is no fire, for example, because the harm this can cause outweighs your right to do it.

I think your rationale should also have reasonable limitations. Yes, you're posting in public to a social networking site. So does that mean anything goes? Any possible use or abuse of said postings are perfectly okay and should occur without any limitations whatsoever? Or is the right to access public information a right that should also have a few limits placed on how it is exercised?

I will say that if everyone understood the full power of tracking, monitoring, and database technology and knew with 100% certainty that it was going to be used against them every time they posted anything to any Web site, it would definitely have a chilling effect. Is the convenience of a few corporations worth a chilling effect on the general population? I don't believe so, not even when the chilling effect is merely a possibility.

For software and practices like what Cisco is promoting here, would it really be so unreasonable to legally require that they occur only with the fully informed consent of their targets and only on an opt-in basis? After all, if people really want this to happen then getting them to opt-in should be no problem. If inalienable, fundamental human rights can have reasonable limitations, why not the practice of tracking people who did not ask to be tracked?

I think your rationale should also have reasonable limitations. Yes, you're posting in public to a social networking site. So does that mean anything goes? Any possible use or abuse of said postings are perfectly okay and should occur without any limitations whatsoever? Or is the right to access public information a right that should also have a few limits placed on how it is exercised?

No, not everything goes. But I would have no right to complain about someone reading / recording what I posted on a publi

When do you have the right to complain? Am I allowed to email you? Can I use your/. username as a Google search term, find someone under that name on another site, and follow them? Can I check for your profile on LinkedIn? Can I look you up in the phone book and call your home to discuss the comment you made?

Do I have to make contact for it to be stalking and harassment, or is there some critical mass of your posts on/. that I have to store before it starts getting creepy? Is it creepier if it's an indivi

When I post something online, whether it's to my blog or to/., I have expectations for that post's use. I expect that if it's copied it will be linked back to the original, I expect that it won't be used to market items to me (except where I have opted into the marketing), and I expect that no one's mining it for complaints related to their products.

Where are you getting these expectations from? The internet is public. Unless you are posting in a restricted area any can can and will read what you have to

You completely missed the point if you think this is only about reading. The company is free to search "HP Printers suck" and find and read every single comment I make on the subject.

What I find skeevy and stalker-ish and generally unexpected is when a company rep is being paid to inject themselves into the conversation and attempt to fix the problem. Reading is okay, although if a company "follows" me on Twitter I'm going to be surprised - that's a lot of resources put into watching what I say in case I sa

Well, perhaps they would care more about protecting their identity. For example, if I post anything negative about, say, Microsoft here on Slashdot, then all they can tell is that someone who's using the nick "maxwell demon" on Slashdot has said something negative about them on Slashdot. While with a lot of research they could probably infer who I am, it's hard enough that it won't be worth for them for just a negative comment. I don't let Slashdot show my email address publicly (and I trust Slashdot not to

What we're on the cusp of is the transformation between "hard enough" and "easy for Average Joe".

That's why FireSheep was so fun. It was a trick "everyone knew about" but wrote off as Too Hard. Seriously, it's "security through difficulty" and I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

But now we have a "systematic" campaign where everyone in any kind of power trying to connect their two particular dots so that when all 50 of them link up we get a Big Brother system - that *you* can't use (for National Security Reasons)

Understand that blaming the victim is counterproductive. You'd do as well to advocate that women wear burkas to avoid rape. But in real society we expect men to control their baser urges when confronted by bare flesh. Just as we can rightly expect data miners to control the same when exposed to data they didn't earn.

Not protecting your identity on the net is more like a woman going alone in the dark through a park where it's known that there's an active rapist. Is it a stupid idea to do this? Hell yes! Does that mean the rapist is less guilty? Of course not.

...If inalienable, fundamental human rights can have reasonable limitations, why not the practice of tracking people who did not ask to be tracked?

I'm sorry, I think you must be confused. You see, there actually ARE laws about stalking, but they only apply to the lower form of human life: individuals.

By definition, limitations on human rights only apply to humans. Corporations now have human rights, but limits don't apply to them because they were born without original sin.

My sarcasm/irony detector is running at full capacity, so I know you were being facetious. It's a shame I have to claim that explicitly but these days, you're some kind of moron if you respond to the awareness behind the sarcasm and not the sarcasm itself.

Still, anyone with an understanding of Original Sin knows that it is something that tainted the entire world. That means corporations are not exempt from it and can embody it. If nothing else there is the common sense to ask: "Of what are corporation

Twitter aside, people usually assume that their posts and comments stay within the context where they were published. I would not be too keen on having my Facebook account linked to my/. or ImageFap account, though I am comfortable with each context on its own. I would be sure to hammer every company that dared to 'helpfully' contact me because I voice my opinion about their products outside their official channels - or because they believe they have something to sell to me based on my online posts - with

So you wouldn't mind if someone follows you around and stares at you all day, or even better records everything you do with a video camera? After all by being in a public place you have indicated that you want to be seen.

So you wouldn't mind if someone follows you around and stares at you all day, or even better records everything you do with a video camera? After all by being in a public place you have indicated that you want to be seen.

This is what I've been telling people for years. If you make something visible on the internet then you also give up all rights to keep that information secret. The INTERNET IS PUBLIC.

I'm appalled at how many people I see running around complaining of "facebook stalking". It's not stalking if you put something in a publicly viewable area. It's like complaining that someone is reading the "wanted ad" you placed on a billboard in a common area.

THAT is pure utter bull shit. I use facebook, mostly to communicate with family, but I am very careful about my privacy and who I allow to see my posts. At least, I try to be. Simply posting on a social network does in no way indicate that I want to be "heard", logged, stalked, or any of the above by some company looking to sell me something. Is my very existance my acknowedgement that it is ok to invade my privacy for advertising purposes?

Sending information over unsecured wifi into public space and sending information into a public webspace are effectively the same thing. Data is data. Why should it be different just because it's in the form of EMR rather than magnetic data on a server?

That said, this is still creepy. Illegal? Dunno, IANAL. But it's just as creepy as someone who goes to the public library and cuts out every news article containing you, follows you and takes pictures of you while you're walking down the street, notes every s

Not even close to the same thing. Putting your information on a public web site results in you having zero expectation of privacy. Much like if you put your wifi information in the paper.

Pretty much exactly the same thing. Set up an open WAP, and you have zero expectation of privacy. That's why I referenced "stupid people", i.e. those who are unable or unwilling to configure their access points so that they will have an expectation of privacy. There's no effective difference: in one case you're spreading your crap across the entire Internet, and in the other you're splashing it around your neighborhood. Only a difference of scale, at best. In principle, none at all.

Companies have been doing this for years. Its just a tool which makes it easier. It looks for keywords posted to social network sites mentioning their products. They then have a CS rep join the conversation to offer assistance. It doesn't track individual customers at all. Mod the article -1 Alarmist rhetoric and move on with your life.

I think to get the creepiness quotient expressed properly, 'service' should be in special quotes there.

This stuff is nothing new. [wsj.com] I think its repugnant that a customer needs to make a public sqwak in order to get good service (and thus have your complaining be a permanent public record for data-mining corps). But, on the other hand, at least customers are now better enabled to sqwak in the first place.

I think its repugnant that a customer needs to make a public sqwak in order to get good service

If you call my company and say you're not happy with our work, we come back out and make it right. If you never call us we never find out anything was wrong and you just bitch to your friends, we can't do that. If we can find out you're upset we can call you and say, "Hey, we heard you're not thrilled. We're sorry about that. Let us come fix it." It would be great if we were a big enough company for it to be

If you call my company and say you're not happy with our work, we come back out and make it right.

Your company is not all companies. My experience is that the regular drones are just as likely to not give a damn, or even worse feel that they are protecting their company's interests by minimising the response to a customer problem.

As if I needed another reason to not have a facebook account. If there's not an anonymous option I just create a temporary fake account for whatever forum I'm wanting to comment on and then forget it. I have more hotmail, yahoo and gmail accounts than I can count. In the last 15 years I'll bet I've used hundreds of temp accounts.

As if I needed another reason to not have a facebook account. If there's not an anonymous option I just create a temporary fake account for whatever forum I'm wanting to comment on and then forget it. I have more hotmail, yahoo and gmail accounts than I can count. In the last 15 years I'll bet I've used hundreds of temp accounts.

I've run my own mail server for, well, probably close to twenty years now, and I just create addresses like "junk0001", "junk0002", etc. whenever I create an account on a site or forum that I don't trust. That also lets me see who is actually selling my personal information, and lets me easily block any spam that results. It's remarkable how many sites that claim "we don't sell or release any of your personal information to any third parties" do exactly that as soon as you click the SUBMIT button. I've literally had spam appear in my inbox from some of these throwaway accounts within minutes of my signing up for some forum or other. Everything from payday loan offers to V!agka. Fuckers.

I agree with you about Facebook. I don't have an account and am not ever likely to have one.

Many MTAs will accept "tags", where your actual address would be something like "barry@whitehouse.gov" but emails with "barry+junk0001@whitehouse.gov" would also get delivered just fine to Barry's account without any additional configuration. This allows you to use unique addresses for sites you don't trust without having to create additional addresses on the server. It works with GMail and MobileMe, and I know it works on Postfix as well.

Unfortunately it seems that many email validation scripts these days wrongly reject the "+" character for some reason.

Two reasons:1) The folks writing those scripts don't know that "+" is an accepted character.2) The folks writing those scripts decided to reject it to prevent you from using tags to tell that they've sold your email address.

What is especially interesting is that google and microsoft can actually correlate the multiple accounts you have with each other, based on login/creation ip, referral email, and probably other characteristics. a few months ago there was a post on here linking to one of those companies' forensics guides explaining exactly that.

Isn't this what customers want, though? I'm rather serious about that.

Say a company has a website and on that website they obviously have a news area, a contact page (perhaps even a listed e-mail address.. rare as that may be) and because they're not totally stuck-up, they also run a forum.

What happens?People don't read that website for news.. not even if it had an RSS feed. They expect to get those updates from a Twitter feed.People don't post to those forums. Why would they? It's probably small and won't get very many eyeballs, even if it -is- the official forum and they can get in touch with the actual business people / engineers there. They expect to just go @SomeCompany on Twitter and get their responses there.People don't use the e-mail forms... again.. @SomeCompany on Twitter.

Substitute Twitter with facebook / youtube / vimeo in some scenarios.

Note that people will do this even if the company does -not- in fact have an account at these social networking sites. Heck, if nothing else, people will just complain on those sites about the lack of the company being on that site.

So I reckon this is exactly what people want. Even if it's not what they want, they in part brought this unto themselves.

And yes.. I realize that part of the reason is because it is oh-so-public. Blaming Company X for a problem with Product Y on Twitter tends to get re-tweeted and picked up right-quick. Saying so on the company's own forum tends to lead to relatively bland responses. So companies, too, brought this requirement to be on social networking sites unto themselves.

But certainly neither party should complain about the development of these tools (and Cisco's is hardly the first).

Isn't this what customers want, though? I'm rather serious about that.

Not in the slightest. I've had companies jump out on me after a vague hint at their brand and say "can we help you? (because we want to hide any potential problem and make it look like we're always fantastic by virtue of shutting you up)" and I found it hugely creepy.

Note that people will do this even if the company does -not- in fact have an account at these social networking sites.

I think it depends where they're doing this and how they respond. If they're posing as a normal user and astroturfing then I find it annoying. The good ones respond where it makes sense and clearly indicate they are from the company. For example, on Newegg you'll often see certain brands where a reviewer mentions problems with the product and there is a clearly indicated manufacturer response offering help with the issue (or sometimes straight up offering a replacement) and contact information. Patriot

Product reviews on a site selling a product aren't so bad, especially since a lot are "don't buy this product, it is crap because I'm too stupid to get it to work or got the one bad one in a million". Doing the same thing on social sites is where it gets a bit creepy.

I belong to a professional forum that has specific areas for commercial equipment. People sign up with their real names. Behaviour is monitored, but posts are not moderated. Company reps (both sales and service, sometimes that's the same guy) sign up and answer questions as they can, in addition to conversations being held by users.

If people are having trouble, they like to help because (1) you want people to use the stuff they've bought a

I can see this software being very useful to identify problem customers who incessantly complain, no matter what the cause. Such customers consume vast amounts of service resources all out of proportion to their numbers. When they attempt to sign up with your company, you can check if they're a bad customer. If their name comes up on the list, bam, their applications for service is declined. This will make them think twice before moaning and groaning that your product didn't come with a free ass-kisser

This sounds like something companies already have happen, but pay some poor part-timer minimum wage to do. The part-timer has a slower parsing rate, but it's about the same.

In other words: what you put out on social websites is pretty much like what you put on any other website: open to bot scrutiny. I would expect nothing less from a completely free service. If you want privacy, pay someone money to provide you and yours with a contracted service for such.

I think the only new thing here is that Cisco has made a product out of it. I know of services that have done this before.

Personally, I don't like it. If I want the company to try to sweet-talk me into thinking their wonderfully fantastic then I'd contact them. If I wanted a problem solved then I'd try their tech support. If it isn't something that either of them can help with (like "how do you do X?" or "which are the best drivers for Linux?" or "this is terrible, has anyone else had the same problem?") then it goes somewhere public and I sure as hell don't want someone trying to astroturf the situation.

I'm usually wrong about these things, but is this turn out to be a web version of the unsolicited phone call? Will we be having a do not track list in the future?

"Hello Mr. Smith, we couldn't help but notice that you were at our site and looking at garage door openers. We'd like to talk to you some more about that. We've emailed you some information already, and what will it take me to get you to purchase one of our fine openers today?"